Caritas (Love)

There aren’t many times love is shown through the book. When it is, it is depicted in a poetic way. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a rather dark book but the darkness can sometimes be dampened by shows of affection.

                Laila and Tariq have a close relationship that started as a childhood friendship and ended up in marriage. They were so close that even the neighbour picked up on the relationship. “she and Tariq were walking up the street together when they’d passed Rasheed…‘If it isn’t Laili and Majnoon,’ referring to the star-crossed lovers of Nezami’s popular twelfth-century romantic poem – a Farsi version of Romeo and Juliet” (Hosseini 163). Laila and Tariq soon did have a relationship. “He slid closer to her…pressed his lips to hers” (Hosseini 176). But it didn’t last for long. Soon Tariq and his family had to move away since their current living conditions were turning deadly. That’s when Laila and Tariq did the unimaginable. “There was a frenzy after. Shirts hurriedly buttoned, belts buckled, hair finger-combed” (Hosseini 183).

                Love doesn’t always have to show in an intimate relationship like Laila and Tariq’s. It can be through a family relationship too. After a rocket blew up Laila’s house, killing her parents, she had to move in with and marry Rasheed. There, she discovered some shocking news. “Not with this daily retching. This new fullness in her breasts. And this awareness, somehow, amid all of this turmoil, that she had missed a cycle” (Hosseni 219). She was pregnant with Tariq’s baby, Aziza. After Aziza was born, Laila couldn’t keep away from her. She was with the baby most of the time in the days. I see this love as a replacement for the love she can’t give to Tariq.